Is My Mash Ruined?!

I just completed my first mash, and when I opened up my cooler on the temperature was about 135. Is this a throwaway batch now? I don't want to end up with a horrible brew. I'm actually planning to submit this in a contest, and I don't want to make a fool of myself. Please let me know if everything will be alright and I should just relax, don't worry, and have a home brew, or should I just scrap the whole thing and start again tomorrow?

 

Increase temperature and keep mashing. The mash will not do anything really below 145 (if I remember right). You haven't ruined anything because it is likely nothing has happened.

 

By the way, II just poured in my sparge water that was at about 170 just to 175 degrees. It is now resting. I was wondering if maybe this will bring the rest of the malt and whatnot out of the grains and make up for my screw up. Is this the case? I'm really hoping so.

 

To begin with the temp was at about 115, and then I added about half a gallon of water at about 190 degrees hoping to get it up to about 152, but I only reached about 140 something

 

Check a gravity and you will know if you are okay. Did you check a temp after adding strike water?

 

beersnblues: do you mean did I check the temperature after I added my sparge water?

 

If that's what you mean no I didn't. I didn't see anything about that in any of the directions that I've seen. now I wish I would have

 

I think we did simultaneous posts. I'm assuming you mashed for an hour in the 140's? What temp did you achieve after you added the sparge water?

 

Hey Buddy, I wish I could give you more help, but I cant without more information. There are potentially some ways to salvage your brew, but would need more info. If you have collected wort then check a gravity. If it is close to expected preboil gravity then do your brew. If it is a little low then boil 30 min longer.
Please don't let this experience get you down. Unlike some, I make mistakes too. I continue to learn with every batch I brew. This is the greatest hobby you could ever have and the homebrewers are some of the most awesome people I have ever met. Learn from the experience and brew on.

 

My pre boil gravity is 1.058, and it's supposed to be 1.072.You think that I still got the most out of my grains and a longer boil will correct the issue?

 

Could always add some dry pale malt to it to beef up the SG

 

I did boil for 90 minutes and ended up with an OG of 1.084. I'm still a little worried, though, because I've read that if your mash temperature is too low then you don't get the right stuff out of your grains (the word starts with an A). I'm looking for some good malty character, and I hear it will likely end up pretty dry. I think I'll just get my recipe together again next week and do it all again. Thanks for the pointers, brewing bros!

 

For the future, pick up some iodine at the drug store. A couple drops of your wort plus a drop of iodine on a white paper towel= a test for starch. Turns blue if your mash wasn't complete and stays orange if you're finished.(Test the mash when you 1st start to see what color to look for). If you get blue at the end of your mash time, add some heat(if needed) and keep going until you get complete conversion.

 

There are lots of ways to adjust during the brewing process. Maybe you're thinking of alpha-amylase enzymes. In the 140s you're still getting plenty of conversion beta enzymes, just not as much alpha. It's no worries though because you can, and will, convert the starch to sugar given adequate time. It does take a little longer at lower temperatures though (an extra 20-30 minutes maybe).

What's the style of beer? What's the recipe?

Given a reasonable recipe with a long low mash temperature you could change it into a saison which would work well with low mash temps, but not so well with lots of crystals. If it's a british style then you could use a really low attenuating yeast strain to keep some of the residual sugars around and enhance the body (make it not so dry and a little more body). If the style is favorable to it, you could add in some lactose to increase residual sugar and enhance body without changing yeast strains. There are a lot of subtle adjustments you can make to favor certain characteristics in a beer.

 

Mashing in the low 140s will mostly activate the alpha amylase well, and not as much of the beta amylase. So, it will convert starches to mostly simple sugars- easily fermentable. So, it may finish with a lower FG than expected, and may be a little thinner, and less malty than you were expecting. Depending on what you were trying to make, might be good or could be a flaw.ie: IPA=good, Oktoberfest=not so good.
Thanks St.Pug. I always get my alpha and beta mixed up(alpha should be before beta in my mind)

 

In my recent readings, it seems as though mash temperature doesn't affect maltiness after all. I guess this makes sense because the "malty" character of the grain is not necessarily a sugar and therefore not acted upon by the yeast. If you're using "malty" grain then you'll get a malty beer - assuming you don't mask it with other strong flavors in your beer. Additionally, and counter what we've all thought was true, the residual sweetness of a beer is only barely affected by mash temperature - it's affected by grain and yeast choice much more so (coupled with balancing with hop bitterness). Something like, the difference in sweetness between 148 and 158 mash temp is barely noticeable, if at all. While I still have a hard time believing this, I actually have two beers on tap that confirm this statement (Belgian Golden Strong, FG 1.007, nice sweet up-front and throughout the mouth; Northern English Brown, FG 1.016, dry, toasty, not sweet).

 

Wouldn't a gravity reading be meaningless in this case? Hydrometers just measure dissolved solids, not just dissolved sugars. They don't discriminate between sugars and starches. As long as he mashed long enough, I'm sure there'll be starches in his wort. The concern is whether or not he was in the beta amylase conversion temperature range long enough to convert those starches into fermentable sugars.

 

As I understand it, that is the case. Starches and sugars will read very nearly identical on a hydrometer (not sure with refract though). Never tested either, just heard this was the case. I'll test the theory right now.....

 

Hmmm. Does seem counterintuitive, but of course many of the things we thought we knew based on "that's the way it's always been" have been proved to be incorrect in the past 5 years or so. Guess I'll have to do some more reading. Thanks St. Pug.

 

6 oz cold water and ~1 Tbsp corn starch; well mixed

Hydrometer:
---1.014 using starch mixture
---1.000 using plain water

Refractometer:
---1.000 using starch mixture
---1.000 using plain water

I guess this just means you should be using a refractometer for your preboil readings

 

Guys, this was all great information and I really appreciate it. I wish I would've had some of the information last night when I was mashing, but I will definitely be putting some of these pointers to use in the future. On the bright side, I do have some activity in the fermentors. I've got quite a bit of krausen on the wort, but I was not able to mash at any higher of the temperature there in about 135. I did add 175 degree water for the sparge process, though. I woulddefinitely have left it in the mash tun for an extra 20 to 30 minutes if I would've known about that yesterday. But like I said, I will remember that for the future. I especially liked the pointer about the iodine test. That was excitingly brilliant, in my opinion.I'm working on an IPA this time, and I'm using some crystal malt. I realize this will leave plenty of sweetness, but I still think I'll be lacking the full flavor that would've been possible had Iachieved the right mash temp. It's all good, though. I'm not as crushed about the situation as I was due to the support and encouragement you all have given, and I plan to rebrew this recipe (hopefully) next week. I'll let you know how this one turns out.

 

If anyone is still paying attention you might be happy to know (at least I know I am) that my brew had a great krauesen on top of it for about 8 days before I transferred it to the secondary for dry hopping. I only left it in the secondary for a couple of days because I read an article about a study that was done by some people at Oregon State University that found that dry hopping for only a few hours gives you the best aroma. Who knew!? all in all, I'd say things were a relative success. Before carbonation the beer had a pretty good flavor and great aroma, but I'll get back to you on the final results.

Thanks again for all your imput.

On my way to Buckeye Brewcraft to get materials for my next mash...